Use word-based interactive fiction to promote your novel?

Video games have always played well with other media. Can word-based interactive fiction do the same and maybe help you promote your novel or other work? Absolutely. But first some history.

Many early games were, if not outright adaptations, heavily inspired by popular franchises of the time. The licensing could be a bit dodgy. But games complemented other media and vice versa, and creators learned to use tie-ins in both directions to flesh out imaginary worlds.

As early as 1984, the cult-classic war game Lords of Midnight, by the late Mike Singleton, came bundled with a prequel novella that detailed the game’s premise and backstory, written by the same author. It is an auteur game.

More recently, the original Myst prequel trilogy of novels sold pretty well, if not nearly as briskly as the game. And if you look on Scribd these days, books set in the Warcraft, Halo or Mass Effect universe…